Why is my USB drive not recognized on any computer?

30 Jan 2011

30 Jan 2011 | |

My 2 GB USB pen drive is suddenly not being recognized on any computer or device. It was working perfectly fine, but all of a sudden it seems to be bricked. It receives power (it gets warm), but the indicator light doesn’t light up.

— start,
— type DISKMGMT.MSC on search box,
— press enter,
— Find drive letter for USB drive you are using,
— Right Click >> pick Change Drive Letter and Paths,
— Press the Change button,
— Pick a different letter that is not in use,
— Press Ok,
— Unplug the drive, plug it back in
— Check to see if flash drive appears with new letter.

Have you tried plugging the flash drive on usb port on the back? Sometimes if you plug in a flash drive on a USB hub or the front USB header it will not be recognized. If you have tried different computers and it does not show, it is definitely telling you there is something physically wrong with your flash drive.

If you do not use the safe removal on your task bar before removing the drive, it might have gotten corrupted…but it would still show as an unknown device.

SuperBlooper057

January 31, 2011

Sorry maybe I didn’t clarify enough, but my USB key won’t function on ANY device, including Windows, Linux, I even tried on my modded Wii! Others USB drives do work with all of ports on all of those devices.

ha24: Is there any way to actually recover the files before formatting? It seems like the process would work, though.